MW3 more popular than Black Ops

If you thought Modern Warfare 3 wasn’t as popular as Call of Duty Black Ops, some recent figures released by Activision has suggested otherwise. The company has just revealed that Modern Warfare 3 has more online gamers than Black Ops, while new stats for Call of Duty Elite show that many gamers are still willing to jump aboard Activision’s new premium model for the franchise.

There may be plenty of criticisms aimed at Infinity Ward’s latest Call of Duty game, but that hasn’t stopped Activision from boasting that even more gamers are playing Modern Warfare 3 than Black Ops. Treyarch’s game is still very much loved by COD fans, but Activision has revealed that there is a 12% increase in gamers playing MW3 than Black Ops, with the numbers set to grow as further Elite ‘content drops’ release, as noted by Eurogamer.

Speaking of Elite, Activision has also revealed that they currently have 1.5 million Elite subscribers, with over 7 million in total if you include those who have just signed up for the free portion. At $50 a year, the company has announced plans to release 20 content drops to Modern Warfare 3 players, content which includes new maps, some new multiplayer modes and a few spec ops missions as well.

Not everyone is happy about the Elite subscription though, especially PS3 owners who thought they would be getting content drops at the same time as Xbox 360 owners. As we saw with the Liberation and Piazza maps, Activision are still prepared to give Xbox 360 owners a one month head-start, with PS3 owners only just receiving the maps a few weeks ago.

With console gamers still heavily engrossed in Modern Warfare 3, it is going to be interesting to see whether player numbers drop significantly when the new Call of Duty title drops this year. We don’t know if it is going to be Black Ops 2 developed by Treyarch, or some kind of spin-off game that Sledgehammer Games will handle, but it’s clear to see that fans are expecting big changes to the franchise as many feel like Modern Warfare 3 didn’t really offer much in the way of brand new gameplay, as it was essentially a revamped package from Modern Warfare 2.

Would you agree with the consensus that MW3 is now more popular than Black Ops, or have you become so bored of the game that you have now gone back to playing Black Ops?